Events – The Art of Liv Rainey-Smithhttps://xylographilia.com
Woodcut ArtistTue, 02 Oct 2018 01:57:35 +0000en-US
hourly
1 https://wordpress.org/?v=5.2.1Preparing for the H.P. Lovecraft Film Festivalhttps://xylographilia.com/2018/10/02/preparing-for-the-h-p-lovecraft-film-festival/
Tue, 02 Oct 2018 01:57:35 +0000http://xylographilia.com/?p=3934
As of a few days ago, I am in full-on prep mode for the H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival. So what is pre-show prep? As you’ve already seen I carved and printed a woodcut for the Kickstarter. I’m currently waiting on a final count so that I can sign and number the appropriate amount of Magna Mater Maris prints. Those prints will then need certificates, bagging and boarding, and delivery to the festival.

I’m also working my way through the inventory I’ll be taking and making sure I have things properly packaged and priced. I also need to gather together displays and make sure I have all the proper parts for them. Electrical components, such as lamps, need to be checked to make sure they’re working. My Square inventory needs to be updated with new items so the checkout process can run smoothly.

I’m also making a few upgrades to better display some pieces. The color Cthulandia prints in particular now have black 11×14″ mats around them. They’re really gorgeous hand-colored woodcut prints, and they’ve been ignored a bit because it’s easy for 8×10″s to get shuffled in with larger prints and then just not seen. To that end, I’m also finished some of my parchment screen prints and mounting them on boards that are a bit larger than they are. Finishing of these prints is mostly a matter of trimming. I’ll be leaving natural edges mostly alone, but when pieces are rectangular, I like to even out the edges.

]]>Magna Mater Maris Special Editionhttps://xylographilia.com/2018/09/03/magna-mater-maris-special-edition/
Sun, 02 Sep 2018 18:51:56 +0000http://xylographilia.com/?p=3929I’m once again thrilled to be creating a limited edition woodcut print for the H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival. You can purchase it as part of their Kickstarter and help make the Festival amazing! The woodcut prints I create for the HPLFF are typically limited to just enough for everyone who ordered one, plus a couple extras in case of accidental loss. Although I do sometimes print second editions, supporting the festival is the only way to definitely get your hands on a signed and numbered first edition.

Since the Festival this year is Innsmouth themed, and I’ve already created a Dagon, I’m creating an icon of his counterpart, Mother Hydra. I’ve used the double tailed mermaid form since it is typically associated with the more dangerous forms of mermaids, and am creating a symbolic border using the vesica pisces shape.

Carving has just begun so I’ll be posting progress photos regularly. Enjoy!

I’ll be heading to San Jose, California this weekend to participate in The Outer Dark Symposium on the Greater Weird. For those not familiar with The Outer Dark, it is a podcast devoted to weird fiction. It is hosted by Scott Nicolay with Justin Steele, and Anya Martin. The bulk of the show is interviews with writers, editors, publishers, and artists in working in the realm of weird fiction; though they also periodically record and share relevant panel discussions. (Including one I participated in last year, Women in Weird Fiction.) The Symposium itself will be aired on future episodes of The Outer Dark, the official schedule is over 8 hours of panels and readings, so I suspect it will be spread over 4 or more episodes.

Although Symposium memberships are now sold out, if you’re in the area you can get a taste of the events with the Friday night Word Horde readings featuring Rios de la Luz, Michael Griffin, Scott R Jones, & Tiffany Scandal. Hosted by Ross E. Lockhart. See the Facebook event page for details.

West Coast Haunters Con

April 13-15th in Portland, Oregon, I’ll be vending at the West Coast Haunter’s Convention, an event dedicated to the art of creating professional and amateur haunted attractions. This will be my first time vending at the event and as a lifelong fan of physical effects and creature characters, I’m excited to be next to the Stan Winston School of Character Arts. From what I’ve seen on social media, they’re usually do some amazing demos at events.

Beyond April, most of my schedule is not yet set in stone. May 20th is the planned launch date for the book I spent much of 2016 and 2018 creating woodcuts for, so after that date I’ll be free to exhibit and edition those woodcuts as I see fit. I will be sharing info on the title as soon as it is officially announced, until then, I’ve got editions to plan.

Enamel pin update

The Red Cthulhu enamel pins should be completed and ready to ship later next week. I expect to have the Phoenix done shortly afterwards, and the Babalon pin will be the last of the 3. If you ordered any these pins, I’ll be shipping yours as soon as all pins in your order are completed. All three pins are still available for preorder via my Etsy shop.

Join me this Friday, December 15th 2017, at Gargoyles Statuary for the Darkest Winter opening reception from 6-9pm. Darkest Winter features a number of new woodcut prints, plus the first showing of an original Lux Stellarum artist proof (above).

If Lux Stellarum seems familiar, it was previously released as a small letterpress holiday card from Three Hands Press. A limited number of letterpress impressions were also released as numbered prints. I’m pleased to finally be sharing one of the original woodcuts upon which the cards were based. I’ve hand-tinted it with a variety of naturally occurring minerals, plus a modern version of Mayan blue, and gilded portions with 12, 21, and 24k gold. I hope you’ll have the opportunity to see it in person, because the photo doesn’t quite do it justice!

Gargoyles Statuary is located at:
4550 University Way N.E.
Seattle, WA 98105

]]>Darkest Winter Approacheshttps://xylographilia.com/2017/11/28/darkest-winter-approaches/
Tue, 28 Nov 2017 04:10:56 +0000http://xylographilia.com/?p=3858Get out of the house and see some art in person!

Bite Studio First Friday Group Show

One night only! Featuring art from members of Bite Studio. I will be hanging a handful of framed serigraphs and have a few unframed prints on hand as well. Unfortunately I will not be able to attend because I will be setting up for the da Vinci ShowDecember 1st, 6pm-10pm Bite Studio
2000 SE 7th Ave.
Portland, OR 97214

da Vinci Arts Sale

One day only! I’ll be there from 10am-4pm with everything from bookmarks to framed art. This is my last big Portland event for the year and I’ll be taking as much as I can with me, so come see what wonders await you!December 2nd, 10am-4pm
da Vinci Arts Middle School
2508 NE Everett St.
Portland, OR 97232

Darkest Winter

New xylograph and serigraph prints by Liv Rainey-Smith.Opening December 15th at Gargoyles Statuary in Seattle from 6-9pm.
I’m thrilled to once more be having a solo show at Gargoyles, and I’ve been working on some special pieces to debut there. I will be attending the opening, so I hope to see some of my favorite Seattle folks there!

]]>New pins are in the workshttps://xylographilia.com/2017/10/31/new-pins-are-in-the-works/
Tue, 31 Oct 2017 03:57:42 +0000https://xylographilia.com/?p=3844Black Goat & Hare enamel pins inspired by the magnificent goat Black Phillip, and based on my “Woodland Rites” woodcut art. Like my other enamel pins, both will be made with a nickel free finish, two pin posts with butterfly clutches, and will retail for $15 each. Also, when you order direct from me, they’ll be packaged in paper jewelry boxes with a paper ribbon, so if you’re not into gift-wrapping, I’ve got you covered.

Unlike my existing pins, Black Goat and Hare will be slightly different sizes. I wanted these pins to be able to be worn together without the Hare being as large as the Black Goat, so the Hare will be 1″ at its widest point, and the Black Goat will be 1.5″ tall. (My other pins are all 1.25″ scale.)

I am unfortunately unable to attend either of the above out of state shows, but you will be able to find me at the H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival in Portland, OR. I’ll have a table in the upstairs theatre vending area and am also scheduled for the following:

I’m currently working on adding November and December shows to my calendar, but I do have a few I can share now:Sunday, November 12, 2017 Siren Nation Art & Craft Sale from 10:00am to 4:00pm, McMenamin’s Kennedy School, Portland, ORFriday, December 15, 2017 Opening reception for my solo show at Gargoyle’s Statuary in Seattle, WA

Not near any of these shows? I ship worldwide and I’ve recently added my newest woodcut print edition, Insectivores, to the Etsy shop, and I’ll be adding a whole lot of new screen prints after the H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival! More is in the works as well, but I don’t want to reveal too much ahead of the Gargoyle’s show.

New screen prints on wood

]]>NecronomiCon 2017 Reporthttps://xylographilia.com/2017/09/05/necronomicon-2017-report/
Mon, 04 Sep 2017 22:01:57 +0000https://xylographilia.com/?p=3821Once again, I am absolutely thrilled to have attended and participated in NecronomiCon Providence. The folks at the Lovecraft Arts and Sciences Council once more put on a grand event with a broad array of programming and guests.

Wednesday the 16th

Since Portland, Oregon to Providence, Rhode Island is a long haul even by plane, we woke up at 3am in order to get to the airport on time. (Confession, I’m not sure I got more than an hour of sleep before 3am.) This day essentially consisted of travel, napping, checking in to the hotel, unpacking/prepping to set up my table, and eating delicious hamburgers at Harry’s Bar and Burger.

Thursday the 17th

The official start of NecronomiCon, with registration and vendor set-up both starting at noon. We got right to work in order to finish up in time to attend the opening ceremony at the First Baptist Church followed by the art show reception at the Woods-Gerry Gallery. Set-up was thankfully uncomplicated since I had made an effort to plan a display that could be packed in our luggage. The most complex part of the job was assembling my standing print rack, which was only complicated because it had been quite some time since I last assembled it.

Richard Stanley, Fufu Frauenwahl, Cody Goodfellow, Liv Rainey-Smith

Once everything was in order, we headed back to the Biltmore to get cleaned up, and came upon Richard Stanley, Fufu Frauenwahl, and Cody Goodfellow, which is a wonderful mix of talented human beings to happen upon. Not long after we ended up crossing paths with Ellen Datlow on the walk to the First Baptist Church in America. We all ended up being slightly late to the ceremony due to the vagaries of traffic, and sadly missed a bit of Gigi Mitchell-Velasco’s organ performance, but we didn’t miss out on the opening remarks or invocation from poet laureate Donald Sidney-Fryer. The opening closed at a little after 6pm, at which point we made the uphill trek to the Woods-Gerry Gallery and the opening reception of Ars Necronomica: Wonders of the Visible Weird.

Scott Nicolay, Anya Martin, Liv Rainey-Smith

That reception was the highlight of the convention for me. The gallery was just perfect for the show, and I was awed by the quality of the work. I feel this was the best Ars Necronomica show to date, and I’ve participated in the show every year, so I’m not just saying that because I was in this year. (For a better look at the show, check out these photos posted by RISD.) The opening reception was very well attended and I was thrilled to run into fellow artists Jeanne D’Angelo, Michael Bukowski, Fufu Frauenwahl, Nick Gucker, Skinner, Gage Prentiss, Sara Bardi, Drew Meger, Kurt Komoda…and I’m probably forgetting a bunch of people because it was wonderfully overwhelming. I was also happy to run into a few writer friends at the opening, Scott Nicolay, Anya Martin, and Michael Cisco. One of my two artworks in the show, Liber Ivonis, was made for Michael Cisco’s story by the same name. It was a great pleasure to get to talk to him about the piece, though I was saddened to learn that the print I sent him several weeks ago has gone astray. I’m contemplating printing a small edition of the Liber Ivonis block just so I can replace the lost one.

Discussing Liber Ivonis with Michael Cisco

We left the art reception a little early in order to make it to the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society live radio play, The Haunter of the Dark. If you’re not familiar with the HPLHS, they produce Lovecraft inspired radio plays, films, clothing, and props. They are excellent at mimicking historic styles and their adaptations of Lovecraft’s stories are quite well done. I always make an effort to see their live performances and not just for the stickers in my lifetime membership book!

HPLHS Passport

Friday

The vendor’s rooms opened at 10am and to our very pleasant surprise, became busy rather quickly. We’d been a bit worried since there ended up being two separate vending rooms, one upstairs, and a larger one downstairs. My table was upstairs, and I quickly learned that if I asked someone “Have you been to the downstairs vending room yet?” the answer was often “There’s a downstairs too?!” Thankfully, it turned out some of my friends vending downstairs (particularly Nick Gucker and Arkham Bazaar) were also pointing folks upstairs. Both rooms had excellent mixes of publishers, artists, and dealers of all things weird fiction, so I can honestly say I don’t think either room was “better”.

The Silver Key here is by Gage Prentiss, the sculptor working on the H.P. Lovecraft Providence Statue Project. This key is cast bronze with silver plating, and is quite substantial! Additionally, Gage told me he customizes the wax before casting each key, so no two are exactly alike.

Aside from spending a bit of time exploring the vending areas and chatting with friends I ran into, selling art kept me busy until vending close at 6pm. We had just enough time to grab some dinner with friends before hitting the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society’s 2nd live radio play, The Brotherhood of the Beast. Afterwards, we encountered a perennial problem at the Biltmore, too many people and not enough elevators. Once we finally made it up to the 14th floor, we encountered a new problem. All of the keycards had quit working. Someone clearly performed an arcane ritual incorrectly because the problem was hotel-wide. Thankfully our floor had been “fixed” so I just had to go back down to the lobby for new cards. A few unlucky souls had to have bellhops let them into their rooms with a master key multiple times throughout their stay.

Another full day of vending, which thankfully wasn’t difficult because I was able to trade off table duties with my husband Mike. I left around 2:30 to grab a little lunch, and make my way up to the Biltmore Grand Ballroom for the Established Artists of the Weird panel. The panel was expertly moderated by Dave Felton and featured artist guest of honor, John Jude Palencar, Bob Eggleton, Steve Gervais, Lauren Panepinto, Rick Sardhinha, and me. We each spoke a bit about the work we’ve done and our experience in the realm of Weird. The conversation put a lot of focus on the experience of working professionally, and how technology has changed the way we work. I personally was quite happy to have Panepinto with us since she’s an experienced art director and designer, which gives her a different perspective from working artists. I’d love to start seeing more art directors on professional art panels because they’ve got solid advice for aspiring artists.

We got up extra early in order to attend the Cthulhu Prayer Breakfast, featuring Cody Goodfellow, Anthony Teth, Scott R. Jones. Each preached their own particular flavor of mythos religion, the Esoteric Order of Dagon, the sylvan ways of Shub-Niggurath, and of course, good old fashioned Cthulhu worship! All this was backed by a choir led by Darrell Schweitzer with musical accompaniment by Faye Ringel. It was good fun and well worth a little bit of sleep debt.

Vending was from 11-4 since this was the last day of NecronomiCon. Towards the end of the day staff came around with a case of Narragansett’s Lovecraft themed beer, The Temple, for each vendor. I sampled some during the art reception on Friday, and found it delicious, so I’d have gladly taken the case, but there was no way we’d be able to fly home with it, or drink it before flying out on Monday, so we had to pass. Happily I later learned that the remaining beer was being divvied out to the volunteers, without whom the event could not have happened.

After tear-down we met up with friends for dinner, and then called it a night so we could get properly packed for our flight home. I’m happy to say our bags were a lot lighter, even with the addition of books, art, and other miscellaneous purchases and trades we’d made throughout the weekend.

Monday
Our flight wasn’t until the afternoon so we checked out, checked our bags with the concierge, and walked a bit of the city. I finally got to visit the Athenaeum, and the bronze bust of H.P. Lovecraft, created by Bryan Moore.

Our journey home was uneventful, and a great opportunity to read most of the way through the excellent Looming Lowanthology I picked up from Dim Shores.

If you’re a fan of the works of H.P. Lovecraft, and Weird Fiction in general, I highly recommend a visit to NecronomiCon 2019. I’ve left so much out of this write-up, not because it wasn’t worthwhile, but because it was such an intensely busy and fun weekend. I’m honored to have been a part of it and hope to participate again in 2019.

]]>The time of Weird fiction is upon us!https://xylographilia.com/2017/08/16/the-time-of-weird-fiction-is-upon-us/
Tue, 15 Aug 2017 17:51:02 +0000https://xylographilia.com/?p=3808I’m about to embark for Rhode Island and the bi-annual event, NecronomiCon Providence. This is the preeminent international conference of weird fiction, art, scholarship, film, and much more. East Coast events are a rarity for me, and this one is a particularly special treat. In my past visits I’ve come to love Providence and all it has to offer, so I’m looking forward to both NecronomiCon and the opportunity to explore the city.

A couple of my woodcut prints will be showing in Ars Necronomica: Wonders of the Visible Weird, at the Woods-Gerry Gallery at the Rhode Island School of Design. Wonders of the Visible Weird features paintings, prints, sculptures, and illustrations by more than seventy contemporary artists who explore the themes of weird fiction and cosmic horror, inspired by the works of Providence-born writer H. P. Lovecraft and other authors and artists of Weird. The show will run from August 16 through August 31, with an opening reception the evening of Thursday, August 17 from 6:00-8:00pm. I will be in attendance until about 7pm.

For the first time, I’ve acquired my own table in the vendor’s room, so I will be available there with a selection of art, including some unique colored artist proofs. I will also be a panelist on ESTABLISHED ARTISTS of WEIRD Saturday – 3:00-4:15pm.

Interested in weird fiction, but can’t make it to the East Coast? The 2017 H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival is October 6 – 8 at Portland’s historic Hollywood Theatre! I’ll be appearing there again this year, alongside a number of amazing Lovecraft-inspired filmmakers, artists, and authors.

One final reminder: If you want more Xylographilia in your life, you can subscribe to my Patreon at any time. By pledging via Patreon, you help me produce more art and develop more techniques. You can pledge as little as $1 a month, or as much as you wish, and you can chose monthly reward packages starting at just $8.

]]>Artist Reception Saturday July 1sthttps://xylographilia.com/2017/07/01/artist-reception-saturday-july-1st/
Sat, 01 Jul 2017 06:33:10 +0000https://xylographilia.com/?p=3801
The artists of The High Art of Hand-Pulled Printmaking will be in attendance from 2-4pm at the Collins Gallery located on the 3rd floor of the Multnomah County Central Library.

We’ll be speaking briefly about our printmaking practices and available for questions. The show, featuring finished prints alongside tools and materials, will be open during regular library hours through September 3rd. My own contribution is a brand new piece from the series I’ve been working on since 2015.